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"I'd just as soon discourage raids. What kind of casualties do we have to inflict to turn them around?"
"It's not that simple. Like I said, they're ornery. If they spill blood down here, a feud will start, and a good feud can go on for years."
"They're invading us. What do they expect to happen?"
"Logic and tribal custom. Ne'er the twain shall meet."
Valentine sensed Pizzaro was wavering, so he spoke again: "Right now you're just other.
Start skirmishing and you'll be enemy. Your other option is to kill every last one of them. Then they'll think the gods punished them for arrogance. But you know how hard it is to run down Grogs who've gone bush."
Pizzaro thought it over, flicking his thumb over a rusty barb in the wire. "I'd better get to the communication center, then. Anyway, this is your chance to get out, if you like. Nobody'll say anything if you show up for the Highbeam-or whatever the crap they're gonna call it-conference a week or so early. Otherwise it'll be Rally Base cooking for you for a few days until whatever business the Doublebloods want to start finishes."
Valentine couldn't see riding away from some of the kids he'd helped train in a crisis. Or could he? "Can you shelter the Shrivastava clan?"
"Shrivastava? Of course. But it'll take more than a bag over his head to get him hot to abandon his store and stock."
* * * *
Trader Shrivasta may have been a civilian, but there was something of Valentine's old captain, LeHavre, in him. He had a gentle manner masking a pirate avarice but it didn't make him any less outraged at the idea of hiding behind locked gates while the Doublebloods stole from his pens and coops.
Valentine spoke to him in front of the arms room, the one part of the store back in the family quarters. Racks of rifles and pistols lined the walls, and reloading tools filled a long workbench. There was only one other exit from the room, and it led down to a tunnel to a separate basement, the family "Reaper proof in an old underground gas tank.
"The fort? This building is tougher than it looks, young man. Both basement and attic have firing slits to cover my property."
His nine-year-old son sat behind, loading bullets from boxes into fresh new magazines. The whole family knew the story of Grandfather Durtee, who held two Reapers off with a shotgun while the rest of the clan fled to the vaultlike underground shelter. The grandfather had been the only loss that night.
"If you draw blood, they'll be back to avenge it."
"Then I will draw more blood, young man. Yes! Let them return! I welcome all at my store, provided they pay for what they take. These creatures will pay for my stock, one way or another."
Valentine wondered if it was too late to catch that transport to the conference.
Ray, the trading post's butcher, appeared, an old army flak jacked draped over a beefy arm.
He accepted an old Ml6 from his employer. "You take the wall covering the back door, young man," Shrivastava said, and Ray nodded. The boy passed him a bag of magazines.
Shrivastava turned back to Valentine. "You taking a gun, young man, or will you stay in the Reaper-proof with the mothers and children?"
Maybe the Doublebloods would let him guide them to a bottom that contained a sizable herd of wild pigs. They could get all the side meat they wanted and carry off the young. "I'm going to go talk to the Doublebloods."
"No! Youn-David, do not waste yourself in that manner. My great uncle went to set up a post with the Whitefangs up beyond the ridge. They ate him. I do not call you a coward. The children will be comforted-"
Whatever else Shrivastava said was lost in the rush of an idea. Was there enough daylight left to get over the ridge?
Maybe. With a fast enough pair of wheels.
* * * *
Within an hour he'd convinced Pizzaro to loan him a driver and transport. Plus a big bag of supplies.
Scaring off coyotes with wolves? Pizzaro had said, liking the idea.
He arranged for a motorcycle, his best two-wheel man, fuel, survival gear, even priceless com gear. "We'll worry about the authorizations and paperwork later."
Valentine wanted to kiss him, remembering his days in the Wolves. If Southern Command had a Pizzaro at every forward post, the Wolves would spend more time raising hell on Kurian Zone back-roads and less cadging for supplies.
"You're not bad back there, sir," Callaslough, his driver, said from the front of the big Harley. Harley-Davidson still produced up in Milwaukee, and this specimen had found its way into Southern Command's motor pool. Fat tired, with a high clearance and rugged brush breaks and plenty of horsepower and hookups for attachments. It was meant to hold a sidecar, maybe even one of the dark-canopied blisters for a Reaper, or to pull a one-body medical sled.
